Cleansing politics in the holy town of Haridwar

Haridwar on the Ganges is a town sacred to the Hindus. It comes as no surprise that both the Congress and the BJP are fighting tooth and nail to establish their supremacy in this Lok Sabha constituency. Several others are also in the fray.

The BJP candidate for Haridwar is former Chief Minister, Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, who was forced to resign at the height of the anti-corruption movement when the BJP was desperate to take the high moral ground on corruption. But times have changed for the BJP: Yedurappa is back, Ram Vilas Paswan is an ally, and, not surprisingly, Nishank is the BJP candidate from Haridwar.

The Congress, on the other hand, prefers to stick to its tried and tested policy of family members getting party tickets. Not surprisingly, the party is fielding the wife of the incumbent Chief Minister, Harish Rawat, who in 2009 had won the Haridwar Lok Sabha seat by a margin of over one lakh votes.